page_title: West Coast Choppers
section_title: Trademark style
hierarchical_section_title: West Coast Choppers / Trademark style
caption_attribution_description: West Coast Choppers bike - Amerikamura in Osaka, Japan [Photographed by Ross Funtanilla]
context_page_description: West Coast Choppers is a brand that began selling screen-printed T-shirts and stickers with the company's Iron cross/Maltese cross logo while founder and "master marketer" Jesse James was finishing high school, packaging the accoutrements of the chopper lifestyle long before any actual West Coast Choppers customs had been ordered or sold. Even after the company did begin building custom choppers, 60% of revenue still came from sales of WCC-branded marketing tie-ins such as clothing, beverages and tools. Yearly sales of approximately 12–15 motorcycles at prices of around US$150,000 each actually lost money for the company, but attracted positive attention. Publicizing the names of celebrity clients, including Shaquille O'Neal, Kid Rock, Keanu Reeves, Ty Law of the Denver Broncos, wrestling star Bill Goldberg, actor Tyson Beckford, and NFL running back Jamal Anderson, was a central feature of the WCC marketing strategy. The other key to this strategy was the star power of Jesse James, presented mainly through television on the Discovery Channel in the Motorcycle Mania series and the 2002–2006 series Monster Garage.
context_section_description: West Coast Choppers motorcycles are described as old school and minimalist.  WCC bikes have been called more stripped down when contrasted with decades-long established chopper builders like Arlen Ness, that is, a bike with, "not much there but engine, what the law requires, and something to hold onto."  In spite of this characterization, a WCC trademark is the use of 9×19mm and .44 Magnum shell casings as purely non-functional decorations, adorning the fuel or oil filler caps or top of the motorcycle's handlebar risers, or elsewhere. The presence of this 20th-century gun ammunition is intended to evoke Jesse James' distant ancestor, old west outlaw and gunfighter Jesse James.  A strong metaphorical tie between the chopper-riding biker and old west outlaws is a mainstay of biker culture, established by "the biker world's Norman Rockwell," painter David Mann.  The biker's cross logo, a version of the Iron Cross or the Maltese Cross, is also typical of a WCC bike, though that symbol is nearly ubiquitous in Kustom Kulture regardless.
  The old school label of WCC bike designs fits loosely as well, especially in recent years as WCC has moved away from the traditional Harley-Davidson chopper, seen by James as too mainstream, and stretched the style in search of originality. Specific influences include Lambretta scooters, Honda 305 Scramblers, and Schwinn Black Phantom bicycles.
  Logo and insignia designs used by West Coast Choppers have been farmed to professional design firm Akins Parker Creative, who carefully researched the colors and motifs dear to "old school bikers," such as Vietnam war squadron patches. This is crafted to reproduce for mass consumption the "odd, imperfect shapes" of old hand-painted bike art in order to gratify the customer's "keen sense of authenticity."
caption: A chopper in Japan with a West Coast Choppers accessory cross.
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